Whale Talk (18 page)

The Slam-Dunking Mermen look a little different than the run-of-the-mill four-man teams early on a Saturday morning in late June on the first day of Hoopfest. Of ten thousand players, filling up three full blocks of downtown Spokane, we are the only team with a uniformed entourage. They wear the same T-shirts we wear, with a picture of a carp horizontal to the basket, stuffing the ball. Dan Hole is never three feet away from his clipboard, on which he records our stats with the consistency and accuracy of a computer. Chris Coughlin cheers loudly in his letter jacket, though the temperature will probably top out at eighty-five degrees, and Tay-Roy, whose chest expands the T-shirt so much the carp looks like an eel, holds Kristen’s hand. Simon, whose T-shirt expands the other way so the carp looks like a whale, and Jackie Craig, who wears swim fins, man the Gatorade cooler. Carly is playing on a team of her own, so most of the time we’re playing simultaneously. When we’re not, we find her and bring to bear the full power of our outlandish support. She and her teammates like it better when we’re playing simultaneously. My mother does not come downtown for this. She says she’ll just bring our medical cards to the hospital.

The range of talent in the open division is wide.
Most contestants have experience in organized ball, and the majority at least played on a varsity team in high school. A few have played in college. We draw a team that’s way out of its league for our first game, so Simet and I rotate out and let Dad and Mott do most of the scoring, Dad from underneath and Mott from beyond the three-point line. Mott’s in shorts today, his bionic leg exposed to the general public for the first time. He really is deadly from long range. Every time he sinks one, Chris goes out of his mind. During timeouts Mott walks over and rubs Chris’s head for luck. Jackie has gotten down the art of clapping the swim fins, which adds a decidedly strange sound to our successes.

They come toward us like a twister in the distance, the black funnel cloud adjusting its trajectory no matter how you try to dodge it. Each time we finish a game and check the postings, which go up almost immediately on the side of a truck trailer parked at Hoopfest Central, we see the Bushwhackers headed right at us. If we each win our last games today—Saturday—we meet at 8:00 Sunday morning. I imagine they would love that. All bragging aside, I’m the best player on either team, but Marshall has Dad overmatched, and Barbour and Simet are too close to call. Their point guard, Alex Neilson, plays at Spokane Community College, and their fourth
man is Thurman Weeks, the sixth man on our high school team. Man for man they outmatch us, and if this were four-on-four, we’d be dust. But one guy is on the sidelines at all times, so we have a fair chance.

Our final game on Saturday is close, but we play tough and win it by four. Barbour and Marshall annihilate the team they play, and we’re set for morning.

Dad invites everyone over for dinner in the evening and to set up our strategy for the game. Icko, who has been working most of the day and missed our heroics, supplies juicy burgers from Burger King and a whole bunch of soft ice cream. He tells us the burgers were left over, but they’re hot and tender and I’m pretty sure he used part of his day’s wages to feed us. Of all the guys likely to lose something when this team breaks up, he stands to lose as much as any. He was living by himself at All Night when I met him, staying out of sight and trying to put his son through college. Now he’s adopted us. I swear the guy would do anything for any one of us.

Sunday breaks cool and clear. By 7:30 players stream toward the courts like lemmings. The air is filled with the sound of bouncing balls, balls careening off front rims and backboards, interspersed with the sweet swish of a thousand shots touching nothing but the bottom of the net. The Bushwhackers are on the court when we
arrive. Rich sneers at me and watches my dad as if he were the true enemy in a real war.

Except for Chris Coughlin, we ignore them. Chris paces the sidelines, watching Barbour and Marshall as if they were man-eating tigers, his letter jacket snapped to the top as if he thinks one of them is going to strip it off.

Tay-Roy stands on the sidelines beside Kristen, ignoring Barbour’s existence.

The game has every possibility of turning sour from the beginning. Heidi came down to watch us all day yesterday and is now a fan of Spike Lee proportions. When it was clear we would play the Bushwhackers this morning, it was agreed that she and Alicia would stay home, but Heidi was inconsolable, particularly after Dad had said he’s going to be shooting from the bleachers to keep from getting beat up underneath all day. Heidi is literal. We tell her Daddy Rich will be there and that he’ll be playing against us, and she wants to go anyway. We call Georgia, and she says if Alicia is willing to show Heidi that she can protect her from Rich, it might even be good for the kid. Georgia thinks she’d like to take in a day of Hoopfest herself and will come down to walk Heidi and Alicia through it if need be.

It is a mistake.

They get first outs. I’m on Barbour, Dad’s got Rich, and Simet is on Alex Neilson. Mott and Weeks will sub. We play better than we have a right to play, probably because Rich has seen the twins and Heidi with Alicia and Georgia, and it gets into his head. He calls Dad Pops and works him over inside, but Dad is patient and pulls down several offensive boards and gets a couple of put-backs. For most games there is only a court monitor, but the Bushwhackers have already been involved in some near fights, so we have a ref.

The ref warns Rich twice about flying elbows and pushing Dad from behind, but Dad tells him no sweat and plays through it. Dad doesn’t have finesse, but he’s in killer shape for a guy his age and even stronger than he looks. He plays smart, always stays between his man and the hoop, and picks up a lot of garbage rebounds.

Barbour is trash-talking me like Dennis Rodman, but I’m quietly working him over, bringing him out on me because my jumper is falling, then driving to the hoop when he leaves me room. It’s illegal to dunk because the backboards can’t handle it, so I’m setting them just over the rim. Barbour does have a nasty inside hook he lifts over me a couple of times, but I watch it close, and the
third time he tries it, I slap it into the crowd, then land directly in front of him, staring.

When we have them down 19 to 17, they bring in Weeks, who is deadly from outside. At Hoopfest a regular basket counts as one and a normal three pointer counts two. Dad waves Mott in, hands him the ball, and says, “End this shit.” Weeks steps back and sinks a two-pointer for them, and we get the ball. I drive past Barbour to the hoop, flip the ball out to Mott, who pivots on his bionic leg to square up and sinks the long ball. Slammin’ Mermen 21, Assholes 19.

Heidi jumps up and down, clapping with glee, with no sense of her father’s humiliation. We try to shake their hands, but only Weeks and Neilson respond. Marshall slams the ball into the ground so hard it lands two courts away, and he and Barbour disappear into the crowd.

Dad waits until he’s sure Rich is gone, then hoists Heidi onto his shoulders at her request. Chris dances around like he’s been set free, Jackie claps his fins together like a baby seal, Simon thrusts a meaty fist into the air while Dan runs over our stats to deaf ears. Tay-Roy and Kristen watch.

As we gather the last of our gear, we hear gasps on the other side of the court and look up to see the crowd
part. I glimpse the muzzle of the deer rifle, think it’s pointed at Dad, and scream his name, but Rich levels the barrel on Heidi, the one person whose loss would touch us all most. Dad whirls at the sound of my voice and instinctively dives directly into the path of the bullet. His body crashes to the pavement with a thud.

There is chaos. Later I will learn that Barbour followed Marshall back, trying to catch and stop him, and was actually the guy who got the gun away; and that Alicia threw herself over Heidi and the boys in an act that will go a long way toward getting her kids back in her care.

But in the moment, there is only me and Dad. He says, “Oh, man, this is bad.”

I’m screaming for a doctor, but he puts his hand to my mouth. “Is Heidi okay?”

I spot her under Alicia, next to Georgia. “Yeah. She’s okay. Hold on, Dad. They’re getting help.” All around me people holler for a doctor.

He shakes his head, and I see blood leaking onto the pavement. He says, “This doesn’t feel good, T. J. I don’t think we have much time.”

“Dad, be
quiet
. Just relax. There’s help.”

“
Listen!
” He breathes slowly, and I hear air being sucked through the wound. “His name…was Tyler.”

“What?”

“The little boy. Under the truck…I can see him….” I hear the sucking sound again. “This isn’t…the light and the tunnel thing. I just see him…remember. The widow…she was Stacy…Stacy Couples.”

“Dad, hold on.” His head is cradled in the crook of my arm, and I look up and scream again for help. The crowd moves in; there are sirens.

“I’m not going to make it, T. J.” I can feel him giving up, relaxing. “Listen to me…I’m not afraid, but listen. Not one minute…” He starts to fade but fights back. “Not one minute…for revenge…”

“Dad, come on. Stay with me.”

“Listen!”

I hold his head tighter.

“Not
one minute
for revenge. I’ve spent my life…looking back…wanting to change things…. This is okay…. Promise you won’t…”

I glance over at Rich Marshall, pinned to the ground by Tay-Roy and Mike Barbour. Barbour is screaming at him. If I weren’t with Dad, I’d kill him. “Dad…”

“Promise.”

“Dad…”

“Promise!”

I do.

“You’re going to…have to…forgive him, T. J…. He had no idea…what he was doing….”

That was Jesus’ last line. “Hold on, Dad.”

“You’re sure Heidi’s okay?”

“She’s okay, Dad. Alicia’s got her.”

He smiles faintly. “Guess I killed one and I saved one. Tell your mother…”

Oh, God, my mother.

“Tell her I love her.”

“You’ll tell her yourself, Dad. Just
hold
on.”

“Tell her thanks.”

He smiles, and I feel the most familiar feeling I know, that of the deer slipping away. My father is gone. I didn’t get a chance to tell him…he saved two.

There is a doctor, then paramedics. They pound his chest, give him mouth-to-mouth, hook him to the electronics, but Dad is gone. They don’t pronounce him dead before placing him in the ambulance, but that’s for my benefit. The cops cuff Rich, dragging him away; Chris Coughlin runs in circles, Mott stands silent on the edge of the court.

The road between Cutter and New Meadows, Idaho, is mostly two-lane. Once you get through Spokane and cut south, the traffic is light during the middle of the week, though it’s the only direct route between eastern Washington and southern Idaho. On a BMW cycle, staying within five or ten miles per hour of the speed limit, it’s about a six-and-a-half-hour trip.

I pull into town from the north, pass the Pine Knot, which, from the outside, looks a lot like my father described it. At the intersection I turn right and cruise slowly down Main Street, taking in the town of just more than seven hundred people, stretching my imagination back thirty years. It’s not much of a stretch. I see a sign for the cemetery and follow it, pulling the bike over at the gate. I place my helmet carefully on the
backseat and walk in, reading the tombstones, looking for the little boy who changed my father’s life.

It’s a simple marker, laid flat in the ground,
TYLER COUPLES
, next to his dates. He wasn’t quite two. I kneel and run my hand over the ridges of the letters, checking the markers on either side for Stacy. She’s not there.

In the Pine Knot I order a piece of pie and water. It’s early afternoon on a Wednesday, and the place is empty but for the waiter, who is also the cook, who is also, it turns out, the owner.

He places the pie in front of me. “You’re not from around here.”

“Cutter. Up in Washington.”

“What brings you down here?”

“Graduated from high school last spring,” I say. “Taking a little bike trip.”

“You’re taking a bike trip to New Meadows, Idaho?”

I smile. “Listen, does a woman named Stacy Couples live around here? She’d be close to fifty.”

“Stacy moved about eleven years ago,” he says. “Right after her son Kyle graduated. Went to Boise.”

A son. Jesus, that fits with the time my dad and Stacy—“She has a son?”

“Sure does.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

The man points toward the back of the café. “He lives a half block that way. But he’s buying the grocery store, and he runs some boats down the Salmon over in Riggins. Quite the entrepreneur, that Kyle.”

“I’d like to meet him. We might know some people in common.”

“Well, you can find him over at the store about twelve hours a day when he’s not running the river. Bet he’s there now.”

The store is clean and quiet; a checker reads a Stephen King book behind the counter. She glances up to greet me when I walk in and points me toward the produce section when I ask for the owner.

“Kyle Couples?”

“The one and only. What can I do for you?” He’s a big man, dark and fit, somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties.

“I think we may have the same father.”

He looks at me with surprise. “Excuse me?”

My ethnicity hasn’t occurred to me. “Not biological,” I say. “I’m adopted.”

When he’s past the shock, and I have a chance to tell him how I think we’re related, Kyle invites me to his
upstairs office. The walls are decorated with pictures of him on different motorcycles, most of them Harleys, all of them classic. Behind his cluttered desk is a blown-up photo of a huge gray whale diving.

“You like bikes,” I say.

“I love bikes,” he says back.

“And whales.”

He smiles sheepishly. “Always had a thing for ’em. Don’t know why. The year I graduated from high school, I took a bike trip to the coast, just south and west of Seattle. Went on a boat tour, got close enough for me to get that shot. I don’t know. Just something about ’em. They have a kind of…majesty.”

I stare at the picture. How in the world…? They didn’t know each other a day, and yet…. “Your mom lives in Boise?”

He looks away. “How’d you know that?”

“The guy at the Pine Knot. You talk to her much?”

“I don’t talk to her at all,” he says.

I back off, give him time to tell me.

“She just never really accepted me,” he says finally. “I mean, hell, who could blame her? First time with a man after her husband is killed, and it ends in her kid getting killed and all kinds of shame for getting pregnant. I’ve heard stories about my mother, about how
cool she was before I was born, before she lost her husband, before your dad…before Tyler got killed. But that wasn’t the mom I ever knew. She was just absent. My aunt and uncle raised me, really. I lived with Mom and all, but by the time I was in second grade, I spent as little time there as I could.”

“Man, I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he says, and hesitates. “So my dad, what’s he do?”

“Not much of anything now,” I say. I haven’t talked about that day with anyone but my mother and Georgia, but it’s what I came here for. I tell him about Hoopfest, the events leading up to it.

“Jesus, that was my dad? We read about that.”

“That was your dad.” I tell him as much as I can about the effect killing Kyle’s older brother had on him.

“Boy, nobody came out of that one, did they?”

“Maybe you and me,” I say, and tell him about whale talk, how if we knew more about humans maybe we could accommodate one another better. All the time I’m saying it, he stares at the picture of the giant tail with a soft smile on his face. I swear to God, put a beard and a few tattoos on him, and he’d look like Dad spit him out.

“You graduated this year, huh?”

“Yeah.” I don’t say how hollow that day was for me.

“Going to school?”

“I was accepted to U Dub, but my heart’s not in it, you know? Think I’ll wait a year. Sell off some of Dad’s bikes.”

“Spend much time on the river up there?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a boat. I ski some. Wake-board.”

“Ever do any Whitewater rafting?”

I tell him no.

“I could use some help,” he says. “I’ve got some good guys working for me over there, but it’s hard to run this place and keep an eye on that business as much as I should. You look in good shape. We’re in the middle of the season now. I could train you. Even if you decide to go to school, it’s great summer work. You can make a bundle.”

I tell him I’ll think about it.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’d like to get to know you. You could fill in some holes for me. There’s an…an emptiness when you can’t get to your dad.”

It’s a feeling I know. “How soon do you need to know?”

“Anytime in the next thirty years,” he says. “I’ll be doing it at least that long. Hey, man, it’s a rush.”

“I’ll get back to you one way or the other,” I say. “And I’ll be back.”

I pick up my pack, stop at the door. “You’d have been proud of him,” I say. “If he’d known about you…God, he’d have been down here in a minute.”

I take the ride back to Cutter slow. Rich Marshall is in jail for the rest of his life, no possibility of parole. His attorney tried to plead down from first-degree murder because Rich actually killed someone different from the one he was aiming at. That may have saved him from the death penalty, but the prosecution successfully argued that he was going to kill
somebody
, and that was the premeditated part.

I didn’t go to the trial. To tell the truth, I really didn’t care how it turned out. I don’t know what’s the matter with me, but they could have let him off and I don’t think I’d have felt a thing. All I know is my dad is dead. And that’s all I care about.

Maybe I’m still numb, but maybe Dad passed something on to me in those few minutes he lay bleeding on the court. Maybe I heard him differently than I’d heard him before. Maybe what he said translated well into whale talk.
Not one minute for revenge
. He didn’t want me living a life of what might have been. That was his life, and he wanted it stopped there. There are worse things a guy could do with his life than honor the wishes of a good and dying man.

Some positive things have come of all this. Alicia and Heidi and Things One and Two are permanent at our place now, and I think Alicia has some sense of what it means to step up, even if she discovered it late. Mom invited Icko to build living quarters on the edge of our property, and he’s going to be a kind of caretaker for the place and live there free. He and his son are player/coaches for the South Park Mermen this summer, a slow-pitch softball team that travels around eastern Washington and northern Idaho losing softball games with astonishing regularity. Tay-Roy and Mott have gone their ways, but the heart of the team is a ghost of a shortstop, the world’s largest first baseman, and a right fielder in a Cutter letter jacket that he removes only when he feels faint from the heat. Dan Hole keeps their stats.

Mike Barbour approached me at the funeral and shook my hand. He said, “I didn’t know, man. I didn’t.” He was popping out of his suit, looked horribly uncomfortable, tears welling in his red-rimmed eyes. “Part of this is mine,” he said. “I ain’t askin’ you to forgive me. I just want you to know I know that.” Little acts of heroism.

Tonight, after Alicia and the kids are in bed, Mom and I put the whale tape into the VCR, turn up the
sound, and sit in the porch swing listening, staring at the carpet of stars.

“God, Mom,” I say. “Sometimes there’s just no place to put this.”

“Well,” she says, “if there’s no place to put it, maybe we don’t need to put it anywhere.”